“You may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will be as one”. -John Lennon
Terrorism is frightening, but we must not let fear govern our lives. We can grieve for the sorry state of aspects of our world, being pretty certain there will continue to be random acts of violence. However, the odds of any of us actually being harmed by one are actually quite remote.
We still may experience fear and anxiety as we wonder where it all will end as conflict seems to escalate, and terrorists of various persuasions enter the fray. That is a genuine concern. However, I do remember as a child hearing of the Cuban Missile Crisis, seeing displays for bomb shelters in the local shopping mall, and knowing that the “doomsday clock” was but a few minutes shy of the end of the world. Decades later, there are flower beds in my backyard, but no bomb shelter (not that one would do any good anyway).
It seems that our world goes in and out of crises and so there is an ebb and flow in the level of seriousness. War, unfortunately, seems a fact of life for the human species. What is different now is that the Western World is being targeted. While we may have ignored or paid scant attention to attacks on innocents in other parts of the world, suddenly we are outraged when it is our turn.
Perhaps this is now our wake-up call. We must find ways to work with our enemies, rather than against them. We need to put our energy into positive action to figure out ways that we can communicate with them in a language other than the language of war.
Remaining afraid, demonizing them, and declaring war on them only creates more war, not the peace we seek. We do not need politicians to be our spokespeople.
With global technology being what it is, we can communicate with innocent civilians around the world who also want simply to live in peace . Perhaps we could raise a chorus that would drown out the bombs.
Copyright © Gwen Randall-Young, All Rights Reserved. Contact us if you would like permission to reprint.
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